Ishura - Volume 8 - Chapter 14

Chapter 14- Mad Passion

His consciousness was hazy.

He felt the inside of his body boiling hot.

He knew that he was approaching death.

Even then, Jelky still needed to keep on working.

While the fighting which had broken out all across Aureatia was settling down, it wasn’t yet over. He needed to prioritize preventing any fires or building collapses generated from the fighting, as well as any secondary damages from the uprising while taking the appropriate measures against the damage that had already been caused.

Plenty of information came in to him at the command headquarters, set up in the Central Assembly Hall’s First Communications room, but he prioritized matters involving people’s lives and property above all else.

For this operation, Jelky wasn’t only limited in the number of other Twenty-Nine Officials he could get to help, but also restricted to about half of the bureaucrats he normally tasked with assisting his work. Since this operation was all to ensure the reformation faction was the final victor, he couldn’t expect any sort of help from the personnel in other factions. Even among their own faction, they needed to exclude those they suspected of getting any support from Iriolde.

Rosclay the Absolute, in accordance with his second name, executed the plan with perfection.

He couldn’t afford for any imperfections or mismanagement on the ground to ruin everything.

I’ve…been forcing pain on them.

Coughing into his handkerchief, it came away mixed with dark red blood.

The nausea had continued for a while, so he figured it was bleeding from his stomach.

On both the citizens of Aureatia, and others besides them as well. At this stage, I can’t let this much pain stop me. Among those who I have sacrificed to get here, there were some who lost absolutely everything, and those who ultimately died—this is nothing. I’m merely exhausting all that I have to keep moving, just for today. Compared to everything else, this is nothing.

With the latest report, three new fights had broken out while six others had come to an end.

That may have been all the army was doing. All of the fighting was happening within Aureatia.

Buildings collapsed, bridges burned, factories had accidents, railroads cut off, roads jammed with traffic, an aristocrat’s mansion with twelve people locked inside was attacked, gangs of robbers looted merchants, the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists were spotted, the evacuation order was issued, then lifted, residences were destroyed to prevent the spread of fire, food stores were pillaged, deserted soldiers had become bandits, unknown weapons were being used, a belltower collapsed, poison flowed in the river, constructs had appeared, applications were submitted to utilize offensive magic items, an explanation was given for mistaken orders, the information from four reports prior was amended, people died, died, sustained injuries, and then died some more.

Even then, this could all be dealt with.

During a similar state of emergency, when Alus the Star Runner attacked, Hidow the Clamp had regretted making the incorrect choice among many different options, but Jelky always left himself the leeway to judge as he carried out his business.

He couldn’t let there be any fatally erroneous responses with people’s lives on the line. Though Jelky was set to bear all the responsibility in the end, Aureatia’s blunders would be tied to Rosclay the Absolute’s blunders.

“The Jeanes Iron Bridge fire is being contained. However, a specialist opinion says it’s highly likely the bridge’s integrity might be degraded, and continued traffic restrictions may prove necessary—”

“Master Jelky! Citizens are gathering in Orde Old Town! The soldiers on the scene are responding, but they appear to be protesting the cancellation of the tenth match—”

“The details behind the unknown weapon used in the Yatmaees Garrion attack have become clear! Going by the name of M120 mortar, the chances this has been deployed to the other squads in the rebel army is—”

“Emergency! Emergency! Please prioritize this!”

“—”

Jelky rushed to the operator’s side without saying a word.

In this situation, the stamina needed simply to speak was too precious to waste.

“The palace…defenses…have…”

The operators were beginning to tire, too.

They needed time to steady their breathing to convey the information.

“Th-they’ve been wiped out. The Palace Guard squad is unconscious! Master Yaniegiz and Master Dant were caught in an unexplained explosion, their status unknown! They’ve already requested backup from the Aureatia army, sir…”

Jelky felt his consciousness fading, but he stood firm.

“U-understood.”

The royal palace. Was the Queen safe?

Were Yaniegiz and Dant dead?

A self-proclaimed demon king. Or someone among the hero candidates. Although the Iriolde Army operation was led by Haade, clearly something that exceeded their estimations had happened— He cut off his thoughts there. It wasn’t Jelky’s job to think through things that far.

“Coordinate with the Aureatia army to take charge of the response. If there was an explosion, it’s highly likely that civilians nearby heard it, too. I want us to spread our information before speculations run rampant. Say that an explosion was caused by the fighting in the Shinag Second Administrative District, directly bordering the royal palace grounds, and we’re sending in more troops to strengthen the palace defenses. Tap the Information Bureau for help. I think the economic losses from royal palace grounds damages themself will be low, but on the civilian side, we’re likely to get a number of inquiries from the nobility. Unlike when dealing with other citizens, there are large political ramifications with any loss in our image. Thus, no more than three personnel with at least three lineages or more should be sent out to deal with them. We can share some amount of the information to convince them as necessary, but for the truth of the attack on the palace and the state of the damage, the nobles should be given the false information mentioned earlier. Only share this incident with personnel of two lineages and above.”

After passing on his judgment as administrative leader, Jelky shut his eyes tight.

He wouldn’t think of anything unnecessary.

Jelky needed to throw all of his remaining energy into responding to this problem.

The royal palace might fall. Everything might end up being for naught.

A desperate torn seam.

The army command room was red.

Even after Iriolde and the others’ corpses were thrown out like garbage, the excessive crimson stains plastered to the walls and floor hadn’t been cleaned, and Haade the Flashpoint commanded the entire operation from this blood-drenched command room.

Hidow the Clamp didn’t really know if it truly should have been called an operation at all.

It was an abnormal war, as if one person was moving the pawns on both sides of the game board, and trying to see just how efficiently, and with as few casualties as possible, they could slaughter just one side.

“It’s over.”

Leaning his head deep against the backrest, Haade faced the ceiling.

It was the chair that Iriolde the Atypical Tome had been sitting in at the beginning of the operation.

At first, when this grand coup d’état had been planned, Iriolde’s Army had been one.

However, consolidating the chain of command ahead of time, Haade had secretly divided this force in two. Those stubbornly wishing to resist Aureatia, starting with Iriolde’s personal soldiers. And those who obeyed Haade and switched sides over to Aureatia, Aureatia army under Haade’s command first and foremost among them. The former was eradicated, with only the latter left behind.

Regardless of whether they had been his own subordinates the day prior, he annihilated any who opposed Aureatia. Even as the city streets were turned into a battlefield, he restricted the harm to citizens to be as minimal as possible.

Despite being a senior citizen close to seventy years old, the actions and decisions Haade made when he took command were nimbler and shrewder than those of a young lad in his teens. It was as though this bloodstained room bestowed the old general with limitless vitality.

“…This was a good war. The kind no one’s ever waged before, all to bring total bring total annihilation to their allies. There were a bunch of unavoidable choices, and unexpected turns, but…it was quite an interesting war, eh, Hidow?”

“I got no clue what you’re going on about.”

Hidow couldn’t move. Until absolutely everything was over, he remained there unable to exit from this terrible room or turn his eyes away from it all.

“…You’re insane. These soldiers, they idolized you so much…believed in you, and you just go and kill them? Hell, even Iriolde’s men…look, I don’t get it, but they had to be fighting with some amount of conviction or righteousness in ’em. How can you just stand there…? You don’t feel guilty at all?!”

“Nope. It’s a little late to talk about what someone believes in, or what’s right, don’t you think? This whole world’s been smashed to hell and back by the True Demon King.”

“……”

“Hidow. You’re brilliant, but lack madness. Some part of your brain wants to believe that logic and interests mean anything. Isn’t that why back in Lithia, Taren the Punished tripped you up? I showed you how I worked today because I figured you’d get something outta the experience. You’ll need to keep Aureatia moving even after I’m gone.”

“Come off it…! I may’ve been dragged into all this by force, but I was still treated like part of the camp’s leaders here. Forget moving Aureatia, I’m a serious criminal.”

“Right now the royal palace grounds’ve been attacked, and the defenses there are destroyed. I’ll give you a new squad, so bring them along to the royal palace. Don’t care whether the Queen lives or dies, but if we outline it all as a former Twenty-Nine Official investigating the rebel army from within and poaching their best of the best to rush to the royal palace’s defense, that’ll be plenty enough for a pardon. I’ve already filled the other side in, so you don’t worry about any skirmish if you show up with troops.”

“You think I believe you? You’re the one who told me to watch you and learn.”

“Gwah-hah-hah-hah… If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done so from the start—but I doubt that excuse’ll convince you. I was just talking about how interests and logic absolutely aren’t at play, and all. Hell, doesn’t make a difference to me… You’re free to stay here and become a criminal, or leave and return to being a bureaucrat. Up to you.”

“Putting it that way makes you sound just like that old fart Iriolde, you know that? He rub off on you while you were all buddy-buddy?”

Nevertheless, Hidow likely had no choice but to head to the royal palace.

Haade’s proposal was probably so he could save his own subordinates with a pardon after they had penetrated into the core of Iriolde’s army. In addition, the Aureatia Assembly were bound to need Hidow’s help to process the aftermath of a coup d’état on this scale.

Everyone and his damn mother, using me however they want…

“…Oh right, this is all assuming you’re going to return to Aureatia’s side, but there’s something else I want you to check for me.”

Haade raised up his head, as though suddenly remembering something.

“Quit acting as if this is all a done deal.”

“Gwah-hah-hah. Don’t be like that. I want to know what Yuno the Distant Talon is up to.”

“Yuno the Distant Talon… Oh, her?”

The Nagan scholar who claimed to have discovered Soujirou the Willow-Sword. Hidow himself had met her just once, during the plot to assassinate Taren. The young girl hadn’t left any deeper impression with him than that, and he probably would have never remembered she existed if her name hadn’t come up here.

“Weren’t you supposed to be looking out for her? Can’t you just get one of your other guys to tell you what she’s doing?”

“As a matter of fact, Yuno is out of my reach right now. In the middle of the third match, a contact in charge of the correspondence about this operation was attacked. No one knows who did it, but the letter was probably read. From that day on, I haven’t heard a word from Yuno. I made sure it wasn’t easy to decode, but for a Nagan scholar, it’s possible she deciphered it just from the words used in the message.”

“Whaaat?! Why’d you keep that under wraps up until now?!”

Hidow couldn’t believe his ears.

If this information was leaked by the time of the third match, didn’t that mean there had been the chance that this whole operation, one that Aureatia poured all their strength into, might’ve gotten derailed?

Hidow didn’t understand Haade’s intentions. Did Jelky and Rosclay know this?

“Gwah-hah-hah-hah… She may be totally inexperienced young lass that one, but she really resembles me… Might just be a real illogical monster. I wanted to check for myself, so I decided to tell her to do whatever she wants during the Sixways Exhibition. Barely a few days afterward, she stole information from my soldiers and ran…”

It was beyond the pale. Not just Haade, but Yuno, too.

There were creatures in this world who acted in ways common sense couldn’t even imagine, and these types never failed to knock Hidow down toward an outrageous fate.

“Yuno the Distant Talon didn’t have a single person at her back. There wasn’t any chance that when she was at my side, she was acting as an undercover agent for some other power. What do you think she could’ve accomplished on her own? Did she manage to use this secret of ours she coincidentally got her hands on as a trump card? You think she managed to wage a war against something all to stick to this will of hers I caught glimpses of? Even if her chances were next to nothing, I want to think Yuno managed to do something, and I want to know what.”

“……”

Hidow would have loved to interrogate every point of Haade’s, but it was more than likely that wasn’t what Haade was getting at right now.

Haade was bringing up Yuno the Distant Talon to test Hidow.

This command room was dyed deep in the smell and color of fresh blood. Iriolde the Atypical Tome lost because he hadn’t been able to imagine the thinking of those with a different sense of values.

“The war you talk about…it’s just killing. You didn’t want to have a war that was settled before the fighting started, where you’re just going through the motions to victory. That said though, pulling your punches has gotta be against what you believe, right? First of all, you were resolved to throw away everything, all for this day, and intended on doing everything in your power to win. All the more reason, really, why you decided to overlook a small little bombshell… You were testing your and Rosclay’s luck.”

“Gwah-hah-ha-hah-hah… See, you can do it after all, eh, Hidow…”

Haade the Flashpoint simply laughed.

He didn’t say whether Hidow’s thinking was right or wrong.

“…There was a report just now that Soujirou the Willow-Sword escaped from the military hospital, right? You think…that it was Yuno’s handiwork?”

“Soujirou’s still trying to fight, it sounds like. If he still thinks he’s got it in him, now wouldn’t that be exciting.”

Impossible.

The chances that Yuno had set something up without anyone knowing, as well as the chances that Soujirou would be able to do anything from here on out, were next to zero. It was close to sheer fantasy, Haade’s hopes included.

Aureatia had no intent to hold the tenth match, and Rosclay wouldn’t fight with Soujirou. Even when taking into account the fact that Haade overlooked what Yuno was doing, he wasn’t going to give Soujirou any further help. Since he had lost his sponsor, Soujirou would lose by regulation, without the match ever happening.

Even assuming he was trying to join up with some power, Soujirou had been admitted into the Romog Joint Military Hospital up until now, with no means to communicate with the outside. Escaping on one leg today, when it was impossible to know where weapons from the Beyond or magic items were flying about, was close to suicide. Far beyond just losing according to the tournament rules, it was highly likely he’d lose his life.

The completion of the death match was absolutely inconceivable.

Or maybe, can they do it…? Soujirou, Yuno.

Their enemy’s name was Rosclay the Absolute. An unrivaled champion who even bested the omnipotent Word Arts caster, Kia.

Something capable of upsetting the logic and reason of “the Absolute.”